This morning the 54th New York Film Festival (9.30 to 10.16) announced a special world premiere screening of Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (TriStar, 11.1) on Friday, 10.14. Not at Avery Fisher Hall, mind, but at the AMC Lincoln Square, where the film will be projected with portions shown at 120 frames-per-second. The tech aspect alone has me all hopped up.
As I understand it Billy Lynn Pic is more or less an Iraq War Catch 22 with a little Flags of Our Fathers thrown in. Essentially a piece about projected fantasy and nationalistic delusion vs. the reality of warfare. Don’t we already know about all this? That families and communities can’t hope to understand what it’s like to be “in the shit,” and that they often express respect and thankfulness with overblown patriotic pageants and whatnot? Didn’t Clint Eastwood cover this through and through ten years ago?
Taken eons ago on Daytona Beach. I don’t feel good about the white loafers. I can’t explain the motive.
The Poor Cow clips that Steven Soderbergh used in The Limey were (a) desaturated, (b) fragmented, (c) sparse and (d) mostly soundless. Tonight, for the first time in my life, I get to see the full-color, all-in version of Ken Loach’s 1967 film. Along with the latest episode of The Night Of, of course.
Those are my blurry hands taking iPhone shots of Kristen Stewart during the May 2016 Personal Shopper. press conference in Cannes. I knew for sure because of the brown leather wristband.
Trailers for noteworthy early-fall films are starting to appear here and there, or will be soon. So why hasn’t IFC Films posted a fresh trailer for Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper? I’m tired of watching that subtitled one that popped during the Cannes Film Festival. The Paris-based ghost story will, as noted, be playing at the Toronto and New York film festivals, and looks like an opportune release for Halloween or thereabouts, and yet IFC Films hasn’t even announced a release date.
Remember what Variety critic Guy Lodgesaid two months ago about the Personal Shopper naysayers:
“Like you, I’m disappointed by the number of dismissive reviews out there for Personal Shopper, though pleased it has a distinguished core of champions — a group I’m sure is going to grow over time. Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria (of which I wasn’t actually a big fan) also played Cannes to mixed reviews, though by the time its U.S. release rolled around, there had definitely been an uptick in its reception.
“I’m not surprised, however, by the Cannes dissenters. Within the opening minutes of the film, I had a strong instinct that (a) I would really be into it, and (b) that it would receive boos.
“The ectoplasm in the possibly haunted house was the giveaway for me: many Cannes critics like genre [material] when it’s postmodern or symbolically self-aware or otherwise above convention, but when Assayas starts engaging directly and sincerely with ghost-story tropes, those critics sneer.
I’m still not sure if Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (TriStar, 11.16) has been entirely or partially shot in 6K at 120 frames-per-second. Let’s assume “entirely” until someone in authority states otherwise. I for one am tingling with anticipation at watching an Iraq War Catch-22-like satire at 120 fps all in. Even if the process is just being used for the battle scenes, I’m there with bells on.
Collider‘s Steve Weintraub recently spoke with Billy Lynn (and Equals) costar Kristen Stewart about Lee’s process. Her answer suggested that Billy Lynn‘s HFR will be a different deal than the 48 fps projection that Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit (Warner Bros., 12.14) was projected at in some venues, and which was met with scorn.
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“The way Ang described it is he feels so disconnected from movies that he watches that he just wants to feel like he’s closer, and that he’s done this with Billy Lynn. He’s somehow achieved that, so I can’t wait to see it,” Stewart said. “Usually if you do that without whatever process he’s doing — [and] I have no idea [what that is]– it makes it look like reality TV, it makes it crisp in a way that actually detaches you. [But] he messes with depth of field. Usually the way a lens works, you control where the focal point is, [but] in this case everything’s in focus. So when you watch the movie you can decide, almost as if you’re there in person, what you want to look at, which has just never been seen before on film.”
Every person on the planet with functioning eyes, even those wearing high-magnification lenses, is processing life at 120 fps. That’s how our eyes make reality look. But replicate a semblance of this in a feature film, as Peter Jackson did with The Hobbit, and people freak out. They want the familiar bath of 24 fps. I loved the Hobbit‘s 48 fps process, if only because it relieved me of having to pay attention to the plot and the performance.
There’s a cloud hanging over Drake Doremus‘ Equals (A24, 7.15). It’s taken forever to finally open, and it’s coping with failing grades from Rotten Tomatoes (52%) and Metacritic (37%). But it’s not as bad as all that. I wouldn’t even call it “bad’ — it’s just a tad underwhelming. I couldn’t hear 65% of the dialogue when I watched it at the Wilshire Screening Room, but I respected it as a reasonably decent tribute to George Lucas‘s THX 1138. Same milieu, same theme, similar story…but a little bit different. I’m presuming that the vast majority of Millenials and younger GenXers have never heard of Lucas’s 1971 film, much less seen it. (The publicist who was checking off names at my screening is among them.) Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult, as a pair of suppressed would-be lovers in a futuristic Orwellian society, are reasonably compelling. Not a great film, but watchable.
Last night I posted what I called an “Open Letter to Personal Shopper Loyalists.” I asked the critics who had strongly or at least respectfully praised Olivier Assayas‘s film after its debut at last month’s Cannes Film Festival to explain the strange schism between admirers (of which they are many) and dissers (ditto). What’s going on here and why? I asked. Variety and Time Out critic Guy Lodge replied a little while ago. Here’s what he wrote:
“Like you, I’m disappointed by the number of dismissive reviews out there for Personal Shopper, though pleased it has a distinguished core of champions — a group I’m sure is going to grow over time. Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria (of which I wasn’t actually a big fan) also played Cannes to mixed reviews, though by the time its U.S. release rolled around, there had definitely been an uptick in its reception.
“I’m not surprised, however, by the Cannes dissenters. Within the opening minutes of the film, I had a strong instinct that (a) I would really be into it, and (b) that it would receive boos.
“The ectoplasm in the possibly haunted house was the giveaway for me: many Cannes critics like genre when it’s postmodern or symbolically self-aware or otherwise above convention, but when Assayas starts engaging directly and sincerely with ghost-story tropes, those critics sneer.
“There are still critics who regard fantasy, however intelligently imagined, with a degree of snobbery, just as there are those who still see Kristen Stewart as the girl from Twilight. Most of the boos at Cannes came from critics who fall into either or both of those camps.
Just reminding that while we sit and sprawl our way through the annual ritual of cinematic soul-draining known as the summer season, 57 films of at least some adult intrigue or constitution are sitting in the bullpen and waiting for the annual award season to open. Not 20, 30, 40 or 50 films — the number is 57, and all slated to open during a 14-week period between mid September and New Year’s Eve, which works out to three per week and closer to four.
What I’m basically doing is re-posting the Oscar Balloon rundown to ask about any disputes or write-downs that may have surfaced over the last several weeks. Please advise about anything I should add or subtract.
Straight from Oscar Balloon (in order of confidence or expectation): 1. Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester-by-the-Sea [locked Best Actor nomination for Casey Affleck]; 2. Martin Scorsese‘s Silence; 3. Steven Gaghan‘s Gold (Matthew McConaughey, Bryce Dallas Howard, Edgar Ramírez); 4. Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk; 5. Tom Ford‘s Nocturnal Animals; 6. David Frankel‘s Collateral Beauty (Will Smith, Keira Knightley, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Edward Norton); 7. Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper (Kristen Stewart); 8. Clint Eastwood‘s Sully (Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney); 9. Denzel Washington‘s Fences (Washington, Viola Davis, Mykelti Williamson, Russell Hornsby). (9)
My 5.16 Cannes review reposted in recognition of a new trailer: “Woody Allen‘s Cafe Society is an attractively composed period dramedy (a few laughs but hardly a torrent) that plays it mild and steady and familiar. But it’s a fine Woody hit-list thing with a compelling if familiar moral undertow. There’s no way anyone who’s even half-acquainted with the Allen realm is going to be disappointed. Is it a bust-out in the vein of Midnight in Paris? No, but it’ll do until the next one comes along. It’s fine, it’s good — just don’t expect any big surprises.
“Set in Los Angeles and New York over a two-year period in the mid ’30s, Cafe Society is a romantic triangle piece mixed with a hard-knocks, get-tough saga. It’s witty more than funny, but it’s really great when the laughs land. How many good laughs does it have? Not more than 20 or 25. I laughed maybe 10 or 12 times but I didn’t mind because it’s not about hah-hah but fuck-me.
“It’s a romance-gone-wrong thing that deals with sadness, moral ambiguity, disappointment. It’s too mired in hurt to be called a light-touch thing, but it does kind of glide along in a way that lets you know nothing awful or grotesque will occur.
In order of preference, the finest films I saw at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival are as follows: Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper (the questionable ending is a slight thorn, but it obviously didn’t bother me that much), Cristian Mungiu‘s Graduation, Asghar Farhadi‘s The Salesman, David Mackenzie‘s Hell or High Water, Andrea Arnold‘s pagan-ish Wild Honey, Jim Jarmusch‘s quietly compelling Paterson, and Kleber Mendonça Filho‘s Aquarius, which I barely got into here but admired the more I thought about it, particularly for Sonia Braga‘s award-worthy performance as a scrappy apartment-building owner.
What is that, seven? Personal Shopper was the only home run, and to hell with the idea that a ghost story is automatically a genre sideliner and to hell with the press-screening booers. Graduation and The Salesman were the most substantial in terms of their moral/ethical questionings. All three are eligible for recognition at tonight’s big award ceremony. The only ineligible film is Hell or High Water, which was screened as a non-competitor.
Yeah, I’m pretty much resigned to the general presumption among critics that Maren Ade‘s Toni Erdmann, which I hated, will win the Palme d’Or.
If Erdmann is passed over for the Palme d’Or, Grand Prix or the Jury Prize (the last two being the festival’s second and third place film awards), this would allow for the possibility of the Best Actor prize going to Peter Simonischek. Please, God…no. His performance as the film’s titular character, a bulky, yellow-toothed creep who attempts to liberate his daughter (Sandra Huller) from a life of cautious uptight-ism with a series of passive-aggressive put-ons, is one of the most repulsive I’ve ever endured.
After some hemming & hawing I decided to blow off the 7pm Salle Debussy press screening of Nicholas Winding-Refn’s Neon Demon in order to catch a 6pm Director’s Fortnight showing of Laura Poitras’ Risk, a long-gestating portrait of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. I’ll catch the follow-up screening of Demon at 10 pm.
HE Cannes headquarters (7 rue Jean Mero).
This morning’s 11 am press conference for Christian Mungiu’s Graduation, attended by (l. to r.) Malina Manovici, Adrian Titieni, Cristian Mungiu, Maria Dragus, Rares Andrici.
Team Aquarius raising their protest banners about the “soft coup” that last week removed Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff from office pending outcome of her trial. Her business-friendly political enemies used an alleged “misuse of funds” to get her out of office so they can have their way — plain and simple.
Personal Shopper star & most deserving recipient of Cannes Film festival’s Best Actress trophy Kristen Stewart, director Olivier Assayas.
I have to leave for the Salle Bunuel for the 10:30 pm One-Eyed Jacks screening but first I have to at least post my tweets about Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper, which broke around 40 minutes ago. The mostly Paris-based ghost story starring Kristen Stewart as (I know this sounds strange) a combination personal shopper and clairvoyant. which broke around 90 minutes go. More of a spooker than a “horror film,” but absolutely fresh and world-class in that realm. On par with Robert Wise‘s The Haunting, and I don’t care if every Tom, Dick and Harry agrees with me or not. (My flat-mate didn’t care for it.) This is a knockout, trust me.
I fully expect Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (TriStar, 11.11), which appears to be a kind of Flags of Our Fathers in the realm of the Iraq War, to be at least interesting if not sturdy in terms of story, thematic resonance and acting chops. But I’m definitely down with the 120 frames-per-second format, which has never been seen in a mainstream feature before. (Peter Jackson‘s high-speed Hobbit film was shot and projected at 48 fps). The only concern or question mark is Joe Alwyn (who?) as Billy Lynn. Costars include Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin and Tim Blake Nelson.